


The Final Control Room

by Diamantspitzhacke (RedSoleWrites)



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Descent into Madness, Gen, doesn't matter they're all dead, is schlatt good? who knows, uh oh things go boom, wilbur's lost his shit, yeah that's right villain!wilbur has joined the game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 06:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26967751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedSoleWrites/pseuds/Diamantspitzhacke
Summary: President Schlatt follows the fugitive Wilbur Soot into a tunnel, intent on having the last laugh again.That is not how things play out.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 92





	The Final Control Room

**Author's Note:**

> I speedran this at incredible speeds, powered by Heathers playing on repeat and discord support. This is a great way to spend my time at 1 am when I have to be up early in the morning.  
> But that is for tomorrow/later today me to deal with.

It was the day of the festival, and President Schlatt was missing.

Well, that was slightly inaccurate. President Schlatt was simply not where he was supposed to be. _Still, this is more important_ , the man himself thought. Schlatt had received a tip-off – _anonymous_ , it was signed, but the untidy scrawl and smudged charcoal told him all he needed to know about the author – that a certain ex-president and current exile was in the midst of cooking up a few nefarious plans beneath _his_ nation. The sheer audacity to show up at the festival, which he wasn’t even invited to, to do who knows what, was an offense that Schlatt had to address personally.

The tip said that Wilbur Soot was to be found in a tunnel that opened by the walls of Manberg, but considering that the walls were gone, those weren’t exactly the most helpful directions to Schlatt. Still, the massive structure that had been the walls had left an imprint on the ground. Schlatt slowly walked the inside border of where the walls had been, searching for some sign of a tunnel. After all, he was in no hurry. It would be more fun to inconvenience that damn thorn in his side anyways.

In the end, he found it, tucked in the corner of a hill. It was hastily half-covered, like whoever had last entered had been in too much of a hurry or had too little care to properly hide their tracks. This was the tunnel that Schlatt had been looking for.

He gingerly stepped over the dirt in his way. “Gotta keep up appearances,” Schlatt chuckled to himself, dusting off his still-pristine suit. Pulling a torch from his pocket, he lit it against the stone walls of the tunnel. “Damn, this thing really goes a long way.”

The tunnel, dark and unlit, extended on past what Schlatt could see. There was no visible ending to it, though he could tell that a slow descent awaited him ahead. The president sighed and got to walking.

Schlatt trailed his hand along the side of the tunnel as he ventured further, scrunching up his nose slightly at the mildew that coated it. His torch really didn’t show enough of the space around him, leaving him feeling his way along and hoping to find the end sometime soon. He took another step and his foot caught on something on the tunnel floor, making him land in an undignified heap on the ground. He scrabbled for the torch. “Fuck, ow, who the hell-“ Schlatt’s voice caught when he spotted what exactly had tripped him. A thick bundle of wires, tangled together, was running along the tunnel. And as Schlatt looked closer, he could see individual cords split off from the main thread. They branched out into countless little crevasses and notches in the walls.

Schlatt was getting worried. A single scrappy ruffian he could deal with, but massive amounts of wiring never meant anything good. He gulped. Taking a deep breath, the president got to his feet and continued his march downwards.

Finally, after what felt like miles of walking, Schlatt spotted a vague pinprick of light. He squinted as he approached. Opening up ahead of him was a dimly lit room. The reddish tint to the light told him that it was redstone illuminating the room – another bad sign.

Schlatt continued forwards, his leather shoes providing a reassuring clacking rhythm as he went. He stopped at the entrance to the room.

“‘The Final Control Room.’ Pretty pretentious of you, eh Wilbur?”

The exile huffed slightly, facing away from Schlatt as he stood up from one of the corners of the room. “Oh, don’t worry Schlatt, I wasn’t the one to name this place.”

“Oh?” Making sure to keep Soot in his line of sight, Schlatt crossed the threshold and started examining the room.

“No, that was Eret – you know Eret – way back during the war. How well do you know your L’Manbergian history, Schlatt?” Wilbur didn’t wait for a response before continuing. “You know, back during the war, we had just been under fire from Dream and his men before we retreated back to our walls. It was the first fight we won, you know. And then Eret, he said he had something for us. Some great final weapon that would end the war.” Schlatt was slowly going paler as he figured out what this room was meant to be. The bundle of wiring he’d followed led in here, to a massive knot of them hanging from the ceiling. Messy, multicolored, it hung above his head like a cocoon for some monster that he didn’t want to see unleashed.

For the first time, Wilbur turned around, and Schlatt had to hold back a gasp. This was not the same Wilbur Soot that he had usurped and turned out. That man had been proud, had stood tall and confident, with a glimmer in his eyes and silver on the tip of his tongue. Whoever this was in front of Schlatt now certainly had the same proportions, if not a bit thinner, but everything else about him was different. The bright revolutionary tailcoat had been traded for a dirty, patched trench coat and a ratty black beanie. This man hunched forwards slightly, his hands twitching, his nails bitten down to the quick. His hair was messy beneath his beanie and dark bags ringed his eyes.

Oh, his eyes were different. The charming sparkle was gone, replaced with a spark of a different kind. Madness gleamed in Wilbur’s eyes, open too wide with pupils too small.

Schlatt had come down here to gloat, to have another hurrah as he kicked the former president out of Manberg once again, and he’d gotten something entirely different.

“Do you know what we got instead, Schlatt?” the madman asked. Schlatt was silent. “Well, do you?”

“I- I can guess that it wasn’t good for you.”

“Fucking RIGHT it wasn’t good for us!” Wilbur yelled, slamming his hands down on a raised block in the center of the room. He had just barely missed hitting the button that sat innocently in the middle of it. “Instead, Eret betrayed us! He pressed this button, and the walls opened up, and Dream and his goons flew out and attacked us! It was practically a _slaughter_!”

“Um, that really sucks, big man, believe me, I get it, but listen. I gotta ask you to leave now. I mean, you’re on Manberg territory, and-” Schlatt attempted, but was promptly interrupted.

“Oh, do you really think you’re in any place to make demands?” His voice grew louder and more frantic. “No, Schlatt, I think I will stay right here!”

The president took a step towards Wilbur, hands up, trying to appease him. “Okay, big guy, you can stay down here for a little while, but if you don’t mind just stepping back from that button, we’ll all be a whole lot happier.”

Soot lifted a hand to his chin, as if pretending to consider it. Schlatt quietly sweated. _Fuck, what does his whatever-the-hell-that-is do?_

“You know, Schlatt, the very next thing that Eret did after betraying us all was meet us at the entrance to L’Manberg with Dream. They had crowned him king of the Dream SMP. And we had nothing. _Nothing_. Outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, outplanned. And then they blew us up. Practically to kingdom come! One measly little stick of TNT,” and here, Wilbur pulled out his own stick of dynamite, “and then kaboom! Half of L’Manberg, gone.”

The madman eyed Schlatt intensely, until the president couldn’t take it anymore and broke eye-contact. “The funny thing was, we encouraged it! I told Dream, ‘Go ahead! Set it off! What can one piece of TNT do to hurt us?’” He suddenly swooped over to Schlatt, who held his arms up defensively. Wilbur’s face was inches from Schlatt’s as he waved the dynamite merrily. His voice was low as he whispered, “One piece of TNT can do _a lot_.”

Just as suddenly as he had appeared next to him, Soot was across the room, back to fiddling with his wiring. Schlatt stood rooted to his spot.

“W-What are you doing there, big man?”

“Just adding the final touches to this little parting gift of mine.”

Such an innocent answer, delivered so lightheartedly. “After all, I don’t want to risk leaving my work unfinished. Would be a shame, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” Schlatt hedged. “What is this gift, if you don’t mind?”

Wilbur’s head whirled around. “Well, I’ve decided to take a page from my dear friend Dream’s book. I’ve rigged the entirety of Manberg to go sky-high! Kaboom! Blasted to smithereens!” He grinned. “Gone for good.”

Schlatt lurched forwards, trying to grab Wilbur, but he twisted out of reach. “What? Wilbur, buddy, I thought you wanted to get Manberg _back_? You know, oust me, get back your title, the whole shebang?”

The former president tilted his head. “I considered that, Schlatt. But then I got to thinking about it. I mean, you got your position fair and square. I knew about your coalition government and I allowed it. And with your whole festival going on, well, that’s not a _bad_ thing. It’s not a tyrant thing to do.”

“Thank you?” Schlatt offered.

“So really, no matter what Tommy and I did, we’d lose. We kill you, we’re the bad guys. We lose the fight to you, we lose period. And just staying away forever wasn’t an option, not really. So I came to the conclusion that the role I have to play is the bad guy. And really,” he laughed, “if I’m going to be the villain here, I’m going to be the _best damn villain_ you’ve ever seen.”

Schlatt could only watch, eyes wide, as Wilbur’s hand descended over the button in the center of the Final Control Room.

“Looks like you get to be the hero this time around, Schlatt.”

He pressed the button. His eyes glinted.

“But the hero loses this time.”

And in a wash of heat and agony, everything went white.

**Author's Note:**

> haha tnt go brrr


End file.
